With a flat course, cool weather and tough competition, the conditions were right for a successful race on Thursday at the Calhoun County Fairgrounds. Nathan started the day for the Rams with a blazing first mile, and held on to finish strongly with a time of 19:50. This was Nathan's lifetime best 5k, and the first time he had broken the 20-minute barrier. He finished in 19th place against a talented field and was G-A's lone medal-winner at the meet.

In the girls' race, our athletes ran much more consistent splits, and nearly everyone hit their first-mile target time within a few seconds. Despite the fear of encountering the random, wandering horse on the course, our ladies all cut a significant amount of time off of last week's finishing times. Emily had the biggest improvement from last week, chopping 4:55 off of her race time. Grace improved by 3:39 and Sierra by 2:55. Ashley, Rachel and Nathan all cut over two minutes off of last week's time, and every one of our runners was at least a minute and a half faster this week. Megan ran the first race of her cross country career and had a healthy balance of pride and discomfort as she crossed the line. Whitney, Gina, Rachel, Bethy and Ashley scored in the top 5 for G-A as the girls finished in 5th as a team. Results are on Athletic.net.

Don't forget to sign up for the Baldhead Challenge soon! The race is next weekend (9/6) but please fill out this form this weekend!